CHAPTER XV

JACK AND THE HUSWICK BOYS.

JACK—no longer the bright and cheerful lad whom we so lately saw picking up stones in the hilly pasture—went home, brooding darkly over his wrongs, and refused to be comforted by anything the good deacon and his wife could say to him.

“He robbed me, and hung up my dog by the heels,—got the Huswick tribe to help him; and here I am, alone against all of ’em, and nobody lifts a hand or says a word to help _me_!” was his bitter complaint, as he took the milk-pails after supper, and went out of the kitchen, shutting the door after him (I am sorry to say) with something like a bang.

“I’m a little disappointed in Jack,” observed the deacon, sadly.

“O, well, I don’t know,” replied his wife,—“you needn’t be; almost any boy of as much will and spirit as he has would feel so. He has been shamefully wronged,—you’ll allow that.”

“But he blames me!” said the deacon.

“Blames everybody!” struck in Mr. Pipkin, on the point of going out, but standing and holding the door open. “I don’t s’pose anything under heavens would satisfy him, Mis’ Chatford, but for me and the deacon to march over to Peternot’s, give the old reprobate a good cudgellin’, which I don’t deny but what he desarves fast enough, and lug hum the money.”

“I wish the money had been at the bottom of the sea before ever Jack stumbled upon it!” said Mr. Chatford. “I shall certainly go over and see the squire in the morning, and be plain with him,—for I do think he has acted a most dishonorable part in the matter.”

“I back ye up on that,” said Mr. Pipkin.

“A sight of good your backing up will do!” remarked Mrs. Pipkin, sarcastically. “It won’t restore Jack’s money. I don’t wonder he’s sulky,—we all set down, so quiet, talking over his loss, instead of walking straight over to the squire’s, and doing something, as I believe I should if I was a man.”

“Wish ye was one, for a little spell,” said Mr. Pipkin, showing all his front teeth. “Guess you’d make old Peternot’s fur fly! Guess he’d wish—”

“Mr. Pipkin!” interrupted Mrs. Pipkin, in a warning voice, “you’ll oblige me very much by shutting that door, with yourself on the outside!”

Mr. Pipkin still showed a considerable amount of ivory, as he turned, and said aside to the deacon, with a wink: “These ’ere women!—have to indulge ’em. No use of answerin’ back, as old Dr. Larkin, minister o’ the gospil,—six foot high, eighty year old, wore a wig, best man in the world,—said once, as he was goin’ into a house where there was a parrot, and the parrot sung out, ‘That’s an old fool!’—‘No use of answerin’ back!’ says the good old doctor,—‘hi, hi!—I often think on ’t.’”

“Mr. Pipkin,” said Mrs. Pipkin, with biting severity, pointing at the door, “will you oblige me?”

And Mr. Pipkin obliged her, chuckling as he went.

Jack sat milking a cow, with his head pressed against her flank, looking down into the pail, in which the bright streams were dancing, when Phin came into the yard.

“Say, Jack!” cried that perfidious youngster, “wasn’t it too bad, though, for you to be robbed of all that money?” although Phin’s private sentiment was that it was a capital joke. “And what do you think I overheard just now? Mrs. Pip said if she was you she would get hold of it again somehow; and father said you would have a right to take it anywhere, if you could lay hands on it; he didn’t know but ’t would be _justifiable_,—that was his word.”

“That’s all the good words do; for how can I get it?” said Jack, who, having, in his imagination, again and again, by some desperate act, overthrown his enemy and regained his lost treasure, would have been glad enough to know how his wild thoughts could be successfully reduced to practice.

He was still nourishing in his excited mind these fiery fancies, when, the milking over, he went to walk in the orchard; having all sorts of fearful adventures with the gaunt old Peternot, and always coming off triumphant with his treasure. Now he hurled him down his own cellar-way, and buttoned the door. Now he caught him, and, single-handed, tied him with a clothes-line, drawing it dreadfully tight, in the hardest kind of hard knots, and left him bound to a bed-post. Then the squire fell dead in a fit,—a judgment upon him for his wickedness,—just as he was lifting the money into his wagon in order to carry it away and sell it. Or Lion took the old man down and held him while his young master bore off the coin. Jack got the treasure in every instance,—only to wake up at last, and find that all his dreams of what he might do left him still hopelessly wronged and baffled.

He passed on through the orchard, and unconsciously drew near the scene of the afternoon’s conflict. That had still a strange attraction for him; he must once more view the spot where his hopes of fortune had been raised so high, to be followed so soon by impotent rage and despair.

As he advanced through the darkening woods,—for it was now dusk,—he heard noises in the direction of the hollow log, and thought, with a sudden wild leap of the heart, that one of his dreams of vengeance might be coming true. “It’s old Peternot! he has come back to get the rest of the money in the log! Here! keep behind me, Lion!”

Then he heard voices, and, gliding near, among the shadowy trees, perceived that it was not the squire, but some of the “Huswick tribe,” whom the hope of finding more coin had brought again to the hollow log. There were Cub and Tug and Hank; they had broken the rotten shell to pieces, laying the cavity completely open; and they now stood around it, poking in the rubbish with sticks or fingers or feet, hunting—in vain it seemed—for stray half-dollars.

“Hullo, Bub!” said Hank, “ye made a perty clean sweep on ’t, didn’t ye! Here’s the old box, but not a dollar to pay us for our trouble! That seems kind o’ mean.”

Jack did not answer, but, keeping Lion at his side, walked slowly past the group, glaring sullenly at them from under his angry brows.

“He’s afraid to speak,” said Cub.

“Afraid?” said Jack, turning and facing him. “I despise you too much to speak to you! Great lubberly fellows like you, to take the part of an old miser against one boy,—I look upon you as cowards and thieves!”

“Remember how we served your dog!” said Cub, with a malignant grin.

“Yes, I do remember it! You had to wait till I was gone before you had the courage to do even that! If you hadn’t lied to me, and got me out of the way first, you never would have taken that money,—somebody would have been hurt first!”

“Look out!” said Cub, seizing a broken branch, and advancing towards the audacious youngster.

“Come on!” cried Jack, jeeringly. “You’re big enough to cut up into six decent fellows,—if anything decent could be made out of such rubbish, but—you’d better bring fifteen or twenty of your big brothers to help you! See here!” said Jack, as the broken branch came whizzing past his head, “two can play at that game!” And he sent back a club with so sure an aim that it took the burly Cub full in the stomach. “No credit to me!” yelled Jack, alert on his legs. “Couldn’t help hitting such a big mark!”

“O, git out, Cub!” Hank called after his brother; “what’s the use? I don’t blame the boy. We’ve been hard enough on him, and now I’m goin’ to take his part. Come back here, Bub! I want to talk. You sha’n’t be hurt.”

“Hurt? as if I was afraid of him! It’s all I can do to keep my dog from his throat,—he has a grudge to wipe out! Here, Lion! Put the souls of the whole tribe of you in a balance, and my dog’s would out-weigh ’em! You could shake ’em all in a pepperbox, and not hear ’em rattle; they would have as much room in a teapot as so many crabs in Lake Erie!”

“I like your spunk, Bub!” said Hank, laughing. “And, see here! we never would have gi’n the old man the money, if we’d thought ’twas good for shucks. You know that.”

“No, I don’t know it! I believe you’re mean enough for anything.”

“That’s the talk! You’ve a right to think so. But what if we should help you now to git the money back?”

“You can’t!” exclaimed Jack.

“Can’t! you don’t know what we can do!”

“Then why don’t you go and git it?”

“’Cause we’ve no right to,—’tain’t ourn,—’t would be stealin’. But you’ve the fust claim on ’t,—_you_ could take it, and we could help ye, and then Peternot might git it back if he could.”

“I guess nobody’d get it again, if it was once in your hands!”

“There ye do us wrong,” said Tug. “We ain’t over-pe’tic’lar ’bout helpin’ ourselves to melons and sich trash where we can find it, but money is another thing.”

“And didn’t I make Hod throw down a handful of the half-dollars he was pickin’ up for ye?” added Cub.

“Which you thought was bogus,” retorted Jack,—who was, however, beginning to be impressed by these friendly suggestions.

“Of course, we should expect a little suthin for our trouble,” said Hank; “but that can all be agreed on aforehand. If you can git back the money, you won’t mind payin’ us—say—here’s me an’ Tug an’ Cub—ten dollars apiece,—that’s thirty dollars, for the resk we run?”

“But we can’t get it!”

“Mebby not, but we can try. No harm in that. It’s gittin’ dark now,—we can edge along towards the squire’s, and see what we can do. Send your dog hum; he’ll only be in the way.”

Jack was far from putting implicit trust in the honor of a Huswick, even where the serious subject of money was involved; but was not this his only chance—though a slender one—of getting back any portion of his treasure? And would he not prefer sharing it with these scamps, to leaving it peaceably in the possession of his enemy, the squire?

“If we can only find out where it is,” said Hank, “then we can be arguin’ with the old man,—for I guess he’ll let us into the house, one at a time,—an’ finally carry it off ’fore his face an’ eyes, without we can hit on some luckier way.”

Jack remembered Mr. Chatford’s word, reported to him by Phin,—that such an act on his part would be _justifiable_,—and so, regardless of the whisperings of conscience and of prudence, which nevertheless he could not quite reconcile to the course he was about to take, yielded to temptation, sent Lion home, and entered into an agreement with the Huswick boys.